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Bridging the App - Technology helping kids with disabilities

Posted Tuesday 20 Nov 2012

Technology is offering many new ways for individuals with a disability to communicate and parcitipate in class. "In my 28 years of being a Speech and Language Pathologist there's just been a huge change in kids’ ability and access to communicate on so many different levels,” said Tracy Boyd.

Altoona Middle School is using many different apps, devices and software to support children with disabilities. Logan has Down Syndrome and Autism and while he can speak Logan has trouble verbalizing needs and wants. He uses Proloquo2Go, fully customized to his needs, to communicate. "It's portable, it's user friendly, and I think there is a definite cool factor," said Boyd.

Another app will read a paragraph the student has written back to them to help catch misspelled words or broken sentences. 9th grader Brady Linderman, who has Asperger’s, says he used to get nervous to let other kids read his papers in class.